Hi Rotan,
Good idea such an opt-out approach.
More difficult to set up than GZIP for everybody, but maybe better to not
'force' somebody to update.
And we still would have a huge traffic saving.
Best regards,
FINANZNACHRICHTEN.DE
Markus Meister
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-----UrsprÃ¼ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Rotan Hanrahan [mailto:rotan.hanrahan@mobileaware.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 4. August 2009 14:40
An: FinanzNachrichten.de, Markus Meister; site-comments@w3.org;
w3c-ac-forum@w3.org
Betreff: RE: compression of HTML would save a lot of money
Hi Markus,
It's not just IE, there are plenty others with issues, but that's not the
real problem.
Think global.
In one fell swoop, the W3C could block access to its vast Web resources to
many thousands (if not millions) of users in under-developed and developing
countries, many of whom would lack the IT resources to understand and
compensate for the change. So what if they are a mere 1%, or 0.1% or
whatever? The W3C is in a unique position; its mission to lead the Web to
its full potential needs to be as inclusive as possible, especially to those
who are less fortunate.
Don't get me wrong, I am not objecting to the use of compression per se,
just its blanket application.
I propose an alternative strategy:
1. Do not compress the home page (and include a link to a non-compressed
page that explains the gzip decision and explains a means of reporting
problems that have resulted from the introduction of gzip).
2. If the HTTP request does not indicate gzip support then obviously don't
gzip the response.
3. If the UA header matches a pattern of known "fully gzip supporting"
browsers, then gzip the response.
This is an "opt in" strategy. It is perhaps the safest approach. At the very
start, no browsers will receive gzip responses, which is what we have today.
As browsers are identified that fully support gzip, and which can be
detected from evidence in the HTTP request, then more and more of the Web
users will receive gzip responses. Obviously we could address a sizeable
portion of the community with just a handful of the latest browsers, and
that may be enough to get the traffic/cost benefits that gzip could offer.
Originally I thought of possibly using an "opt out" approach, where
"problem" browsers would be singled out for uncompressed responses, but the
initial negative effect on the Web community might cause unnecessary
problems and tarnish the good reputation of the consortium.
---Rotan.
-----Original Message-----
From: FinanzNachrichten.de, Markus Meister
[mailto:markus.meister@finanznachrichten.de]
Sent: 04 August 2009 12:24
To: Rotan Hanrahan; site-comments@w3.org; w3c-ac-forum@w3.org
Subject: AW: compression of HTML would save a lot of money
Good hint, Rotan.
I just had a look at the traffic stats of our media.
Last month we had 0,06 % of the traffic with IE5.5 and a total of 0,05 %
with IE5/IE5.01/IE5.14 and older versions of IE.
That's in total around 0,11 %.
Sounds tough, but I would prefer to 'motivate' this 1 out of 1000 users to
update his browser ...
Markus
-----UrsprÃ¼ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: w3c-ac-forum-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-ac-forum-request@w3.org] Im
Auftrag von Rotan Hanrahan
Gesendet: Dienstag, 4. August 2009 12:48
An: FinanzNachrichten.de, Markus Meister; site-comments@w3.org;
w3c-ac-forum@w3.org
Betreff: RE: compression of HTML would save a lot of money
Not all browsers support gzip, mainly older ones. Some browsers that claim
to support gzip have bugs (e.g. IE5.5 without the hotfix) that cause page
loading to fail or worse. The W3C server would therefore have to "sniff" the
requests to avoid causing problems for a subset of the global community. I'm
not sure if the hotfix can be detected in a HTTP request so we'd have to
take the safest line and not deliver gzip to any of these browsers, fixed or
otherwise. Even some of the newer browsers have problems with gzip.
Compression would also increase the processing overhead a little, though
caching could help here.
So, while I think the proposal has merit, we need to be cautious that we
don't detach a portion of the world who are struggling with old and/or buggy
browser implementations. W3C is global, after all.
---Rotan
-----Original Message-----
From: w3c-ac-forum-request@w3.org [mailto:w3c-ac-forum-request@w3.org] On
Behalf Of FinanzNachrichten.de, Markus Meister
Sent: 04 August 2009 11:29
To: site-comments@w3.org; w3c-ac-forum@w3.org
Subject: compression of HTML would save a lot of money
Dear Ian,
I have just noticed that we don't use HTML compression on our W3C website.
If we would use e.g. GZIP, we could save a lot of traffic and money.
3 examples:
http://www.w3.org/ 46 kB
http://lists.w3.org/ 227 kB
http://validator.w3.org/ 27 kB
I have just put these three html files on our test server and the result
confirmed that if we would deliver compressed files, the size would somewhat
smaller and we could reduce our costs by saving cash:
* homepage compressed: 14 kB (-70 % traffic)
* lists homepage compressed: 23 kB (-90 % traffic)
* validator homepage compressed: 5 kB (-81 % traffic)
Looking at our financial situation, it would be phantastic if you could
reduce our traffic expenses by maybe -50 % (graphics would not be concerned
by a compression).
If there are no 'political' reasons why it's not possible for us to use
compression, please check this idea with the server responsible.
When the traffic numbers are still around the same as last year (when I
proposed advertising to increase our revenues) I would guess that we could
save as much traffic costs that we economize a 5 digit Euro/USD amount per
year with compression.
Best regards,
FINANZNACHRICHTEN.DE
Markus Meister
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Alle News zu Aktien, BÃ¶rse und Finanzen!!
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